Looking back upon our history, we have used umbrellas for thousands of years. At the edge, we Japanese almost obtain Western umbrellas, not Japanese ones. I have never seen Japanese ones when visited my friends. Sorry, but it looks we are mostly forgetting our tradition.

In the middle of the Showa era, Japanese people were said to get to produce the Western umbrellas more than Japanese ones, along the westernization of life after the war. Maehara Koei Shoten has made high-grade Western umbrellas in Tokyo since 1948.

Maehara decided to live on producing the Western umbrellas although most of Japanese people used to have Japanese ones at the time. They must have had the foresight. In 1960s, they got to serve as a purveyor of the Imperial household.

Their umbrellas're still all handmade by artisans. You can select the handle among eleven kinds like maples. Loss leader of an umbrella, well, must be canopy cloth.

It is said the rain in Japan is heavier than European, though the Western umbrellas are said to have been developed in U.K. of the 18th century. It means Japan's cloth knows Japan's rain. All their cloth is woven by a traditional loom way at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

Now, I believe the high-grade umbrellas can bring us higher. At the street after the rain, we often see broken plastic umbrellas desolated. It means there are some bad-mannered men here and there in Japan. If the umbrellas were originally top-graded, it is supposed they are not given up easily. Having a high-grade umbrella makes you well-mannered.